Tensions of a Discipline: The First World Congress of Psychiatry in Paris, between Global Ambitions and Local Practices

In 1950, the First World Congress of Psychiatry took place in Paris. Gathering more than two thousand people, the event became a stage where many issues were negotiated for the psychiatric discipline in particular but also for the way of doing science of which the international conference was one of the most widespread practices. Between two wars—World War II and the Cold War—defining the international community was complex. Recently awarded a Nobel Prize for Medicine, psychiatry as a discipline negotiated its boundaries between biological and/or social determinants. This boundary work was framed by a narrative that underlined the novelty of the process—the first congress—and the materiality of a congress that also legitimized itself through a particular place, the Sorbonne in Paris.